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Top home-school texts dismiss Darwin, evolution

Christian-based materials dominate a growing home-school education
market that encompasses more than 1.5 million students in the U.S. And
for most home-school parents, a Bible-based version of the Earth’s
creation is exactly what they want. Federal statistics from 2007 show
83 percent of home-schooling parents want to give their children
“religious or moral instruction.”

Hold on there, AP reporter Dylan Lovan. (The link will expire eventually, so that’s just a Google search that is at least likely to turn up excerpts.)

On the rare occasions when I let my home-schooled kids out of their prayer closets, I usually have a few minutes to spare, before they start crying that the bibles I’ve chained around their necks are chafing them through their penitential sackcloths, so I take the opportunity to teach them the critical thinking skills that would prevent them from making the huge leap necessary to connect the dots from “want to give their children ‘religious or moral instruction'” to “Bible-based version of the Earth’s creation.” (The school system that educated me did not make me smart enough to see the connections Lovan appears to see.)

It’s probably a bigger story that 17 percent of home-school parents apparently offer no “religious or moral instruction” at all. Without the proper ideology, how will today’s kids learn the new Rs — respect, relationships, and recycling? Can the flying spaghetti monster protect us from the shame? Scandal!

The article continues:

“The majority of home-schoolers
self-identify as evangelical Christians,” said Ian Slatter, a spokesman
for the Home School Legal Defense Association. “Most home-schoolers
will definitely have a sort of creationist component to their
home-school program.”

Those who don’t, however, often feel isolated and frustrated from trying to find a textbook that fits their beliefs.